Life Happens in the Contrasts
I think our bodies are all measuring devices for contrast.
It’s around five in the afternoon and I’ve just woken up from an afternoon nap — the first one in at least the last five days, which might be a personal record for me. I’ve missed these guilt-free naps and it seems they’ve missed me just the same. The last five days have been some of my busiest this year, so busy that it’s taken me at least two business days to reply to birthday greetings from last week.
Before my nap, at around two o’clock, I was walking back home from school with my friend 大德 (Dà Dé), whose English name is Dave, so let’s just call him Dave.
On our walk back, we noticed the perfect weather and all the colors around us. We talked about how spring really is when Beijing is at its most beautiful — I wish I had gone out more the past few weeks. A gust of wind blew from the west side of the campus, taking with it half of the bright yellow leaves of a tree we were walking towards, and suddenly it was snowing yellow.
Dave is Thai, which is really common on our campus, but he’s also a Christian who goes to church every Sunday, which makes him a rare commodity. So the moment I get any thoughts whatsoever relating to the divine, I make it a point to bring it up with him. As leaves were floating towards us like a flock of goldfinches, I told Dave about my complicated relationship with God and how it’s during moments like these when I feel most connected with a much higher being.
“God is in everything,” I told him, revealing much of my Jesuit education, “but sometimes it takes moments like yellow snow in the spring for us to notice.” He agreed, but only after guiding me through how to say all of that in Chinese — he’s my reference for anything related to Chinese vocabulary and grammar.
He, too, had just had a busy past few days. We continued walking, almost floating, given how light things were in comparison to the past few days.
As I’m reviewing the rest of the day in my head, my alarm goes off and takes me back to my physical body on my bed. It’s now almost six — post-nap, head empty — and for the first time in the past week, I find myself within a sacred pocket of time to do nothing.
“Silent glory,” I say to myself.
I graduated from college six years ago, but I still remember the final lesson I learned from that period. It was from Fr. Jett’s — who was the University President at the time — Pabaon (an event for seniors, where professors are invited to speak and leave some words for the graduating class), where he gave a talk on our school’s motto, AMDG. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. He went through each letter; the G was my favorite bit. Glory.
Glory isn’t simply elation, winning, or getting that bread. Rather, it’s that special type of high that comes only as a result of a prior great difficulty. Glory comes right after that big project is completed. It comes when a relationship begins to find its footing after long periods of work. It comes right after the longest week of our lives. It’s Loki finally realizing what kind of god he needs to be — glorious purpose.
Glory is earned.
It’s now almost seven and as the night takes over, my stomach grumbles for my attention — glorious hunger. I order some takeout Xiao Long Bao and do my long-overdue laundry while I wait for the goods to arrive. I had almost forgotten what slowness feels like. It’s a stark contrast to the days that just came before.
I’m reminded of a lesson from my weekly Chinese calligraphy classes. During last week’s session, our instructor gave me some game-changing advice. As he was checking my work, he pointed out some strokes that could use some change in the thickness and sharpness of the lines — some contrast. “应该有变化,” he says. “There should be some change.”
A straight line with no change is boring. Contrast is art.
The same might be said for the art of living. The pursuit of constant happiness and satisfaction is understandable, but it’s also a bit of a waste of time in that it’s an impossible goal. Life’s deepest and most meaningful moments seem to always come as results of some form of difficulty — acts of service, kindness, and love; bringing people together; choosing to be the bigger person in a conflict; making the difficult choice. These all require a certain amount of work and sacrifice, but they almost always lead to a greater sense of fulfillment.
The highs come after the lows. It’s almost as if life has incentivized the pursuit of contrast — as if the full experience of life happens within these upward and downward shifts.
I hop on a call with Ariana to end the day. Tonight’s my turn to pick the movie so I scroll through my choices and I stumble upon Mike Birbiglia’s new comedy special The Old Man and The Pool, which had just premiered on Netflix. He’s had three specials before this one and he hasn’t missed yet, so it’s a no-brainer of a choice.
Birbiglia’s specials thrive in his expert storytelling. This one is no different. Like any good story, he takes us on this trip, and it’s quite a cathartic one. He touches on family and love and our mortality. I go from laughing my cheekbones sore to holding my tears back, and back to laughter again.
The show ends and I’m crowning Mike Birgbiglia the GOAT of stand-up — clearly still high from that performance. Ariana and I talk for a bit about our day. She tells me about the latest drama on The Amazing Race, while I tell her about the yellow snow from earlier.
And I don’t know if it’s the effects of the show we just watched, or the overall relief of rest, or something entirely different that I’m yet to unpack, but I just begin breaking down in tears. “I don’t know where this is all coming from,” I tell her.
Just yesterday, she told me that she had read the essay I wrote three years ago called “Why We Weep: A Lesson From My 2nd Grade Math Teacher.” It’s a story of how our grade 2 Math teacher taught us a lesson about crying and how we are able to see things more clearly when we do. And now she’s quoting it back to me: “When you cry, you clean your eyes.” And I agree, of course.
I think our bodies are all measuring devices for contrast. They sense all of it and live them all fully, whether we’re aware of them or not. The body is always trying to tell us something, always responding to change. These tears of glory have some message to share if I only listen. The pace at which our hearts beat has its own stories for us. I can only imagine what my clenched fists and tensed shoulders have to say.
And I’m willing to bet, all these stories happen within the contrasts of life — when there is change. We don’t always like it, and we don’t have to, but this is where life happens. It’s in the shifts in direction, in the big and small decisions, in the inflection points of the graph. I don’t think living on the edge is about living dangerously, rather, it’s being in it for the ride when life takes its sharp turns.
